home-cooking

San Antonio Woman Shares Her Secret for Making the Fastest Tamales Ever

Whenever I plan on making tamales, I always plan on spending a few hours in the kitchen rolling out all of the masa, adding the filling, rolling the tamales and then stuffing it in the corn husk. Not anymore! Christina Fuentes Rosendahl, a party planner from San Antonio, Texas has shared her trick for making a tamale in under a minute.

With over 11,000,000 views and 5,000 comments, Christina is sharing her technique to fellow tamale makers. While some question the technique, (some are saying that the corn masa should be wet and spread on the corn husk), most commenters are thrilled to learn this quick trick.

Once the fillings are done, it’s time to prepare the masa dough. Made with masa harina, flour, baking powder, salt, hot water and pork lard (or vegetable shortening), this dough only takes a few minutes to whip up.

Now comes the part where, once time consuming, is reduced to seconds thanks to Christina. Using a plastic flour tortillas bag (in this case a H-E-B bag) cut the sides to make the bag lay flat. Place the bag on the tortilla press, open so once you add the masa dough a flap of plastic covers it.

Press down on the tortilla maker (if you don’t have one you can totally get one here) and release. The dough should be almost the size of the tortilla press. Add in your tamale fillings and then roll. Place the rolled homemade tamales in the corn husk, roll and fold, and you’re done! Make yourself an assembly line with another helping hand and these tamales will be filled before you can say, “delicioso.”

Looking to make your own tamales this week? Check out our chicken tamales recipe and try out the trick yourself.

If the masa dough seems too wet for the tortilla press add in a little extra of masa harina.